Asus ROG MARS GTX 295 graphics card to hit North America

When word first came out about the Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) MARS videocard, we used words like "mammoth" and "monstrous" to describe it. First showcased at Computex 2009, the card is now set to become more than just something thought up by the Asus engineers as it will soon become available in the US and Canada.

This is not your father's GTX 295 as Asus has decided to put together something a little different with this card. First they started with dual GTX 285 GPUs and then went a little crazy, adding a 4GB frame buffer with the world's first 1024-bit memory interface (512-bit per GPU). The engineers beefed up the cooling with 66% greater heatpipe coverage with the end result being a card Asus claims is 23% more powerful than conventional GTX 295 graphics cards with a 20% better heat dissipation rate.

The card sports a core clock speed of 648MHz, shader clock speed of 1476MHz and memory clock speed of 1.152GHz (2.304GHz data rate). In addition to tweaking performance, Asus added EMI shielding around the card, covered chokes and Low RDS(on) MOSFETs that run 25% more efficient and 15C cooler than standard components along with a pair of fuses for double the overvoltage protection when compared to reference designs.

With only 1000 units scheduled to be produced with each card assigned a unique serial number, I bet you're asking "How much?" and "When can I get one?". Well, Asus isn't exactly saying although the company did reveal that details will be announced on ASUS' official Twitter social networking page.

also i know you should buy smart but if you always waiting you will never get anything!

that comment made no sense. I'm waiting for newest architecture, which comes out q4 of this year, and then I'll make the purchase, makes more sense to get that then to buy something ridiculously expensive now because in 3 months there will already be a card that outperforms it by a wide margin and will cost the same amounts, then it makes your card a moot point. Thats smart buying. Whats 3 more months?

"What's 3 more months?" Well...say that every 3 months and you will find out. In 3 months, there will always be the next gen card will be out, the new architecture will be right around the corner. It's a never-ending game.